Eliminate Kalinowski's Tinamou
Nothoprocta kalinowskii from the list of South American
species

Background: Nothoprocta kalinowskii is known from only
three specimens. It was described by Berlepsch and Stolzmann (1901)
from a site (Licamachay) believed to be near Cuzco, that is to
say, in an intermontane valley in south central Peru. In subsequent
years, the type, which was in Warsaw, was seen by, or drew comments
from, few if any ornithologists. Hellmayr and Conover (1942) suggested
(apparently without having seen the type) that kalinowskii
was "probably a race of" the widespread Ornate Tinamou
Nothoprocta ornata, of which there was no representative
in the department of Cuzco.

Decades later, Meyer de Schauensee (1966)
reported a second specimen was in the collections of the American
Museum of Natural History, collected at a site in the western
Andes of northern Peru. Meyer de Schauensee repeated the suggestion
that kalinowskii may be a subspecies of ornata, although
the new specimen placed the only two sites for kalinowskii
at opposite ends of the distribution of Nothoprocta ornata
branickii. It is not known who identified this specimen as
kalinowskii (although it probably was Maria Koepecke),
or on what basis. Regardless, the AMNH specimen became the modern
"template" for what kalinowskii was (rather than
the type, which was difficult to access). More recently, Vasconcelas
(2002) reported a third specimen, similar to the AMNH specimen
and from the same part of Peru.

It's not that unusual for a species to be
known from only a few specimens, or to have disjunct distributions.
But no other Peruvian species has a distribution similar to that
reported for Nothoprocta kalinowskii. Furthermore, as mentioned
above, the reported distribution of kalinowskii lies in
two pockets at the northern end of, and just to the souteastern
end of, the distribution of Nothoprocta ornata branickii.
This distribution is difficult to reconcile with literature suggestions
that kalinowksii might be a distinct subspecies of ornata.

Recent evidence:
Krabbe and Schulenberg (2005) reported on "A mystery solved:
the identity and distribution of Kalinowski's Tinamou Nothoprocta
kalinowskii" (pdf available from TSS or from Remsen).
Krabbe visited Warsaw and studied the type of kalinowskii.
Krabbe and Schulenberg review the slight reported differences
between kalinowskii and branickii, and variation
within branickii, and conclude that kalinowskii
is "merely an extreme individual variant" of branickii
(see the comparative photographs in Krabbe and Schulenberg; our
use of the adjective "extreme" makes the type of kalinowskii
sound more different from run-of-the-mill branickii than
it really is). Therefore, kalinowskii is a junior synonym
of branickii (described by Taczanowski in 1874), and not
a separate taxon.

Furthermore, Krabbe and Schulenberg were
able to retrace the route of Jean Kalinowski, the collector of
the type of Kalinowski's Tinamou. The exact location of "Licamachay"
remains undetermined, but clearly it was farther west than Cuzco,
and likely not disjunct from or parapatric to the distribution
of branickii.

Krabbe and Schulenberg also discuss the
two specimens, reportedly kalinowskii, from the western
Andes. These two specimens differ in some (subtle) ways from topotypical
branickii (and from the type of kalinowskii). The limited
evidence suggests that these specimens may represent no more than
the end point of a cline in variation at the northern edge of
the range of branickii.

Recommendation: A "yes" vote on
this proposal - which is what I recommend - would be a vote to
accept the conclusions of Krabbe and Schulenberg to "demote"
kalinowskii from species to junior synonym of Nothoprocta
ornata branickii.